Archives for August 2014

As the summer holiday for me comes to a close and I start to prepare mentally for the winter schedule (with the weather and temperature already going down in Belgium), I find that the days start to get shorter but you get to find more time somehow for reading particularly on the longer evenings.
I am currently midway through a book about Burgundy wine written by an American who followed his dream leaving a job in finance to start making wine in France. The book reads very well and I will review it once I finish it probably sometime next week. For those interested the name of the book is The Road to Burgundy, The Unlikely story of an American making wine and a new life in France.
In the meantime as is usual here are some articles which i enjoyed reading this week. Hope you enjoy and have a great start to September.
There is no such thing as a free lunch and this is the perfect rant. It is unfortunately in Italian but well worth going through it because it explains how important … [Read more...]

Valletta, Malta's capital city is known by locals as il-Belt (the City in English). Walking around over the past few days with the eyes of part-insider part-tourist, I noticed that Valletta, which is undergoing heavy restoration, has never looked better.
There are a few things which I do on every visit to the island of Malta. A visit to Valletta is one of them no matter how short the visit is. Whether its to get a perfect espresso, to meet up friends or bump into people that you have not met in a while, Valletta is the perfect melting pot.
It is a city built by gentlemen for gentlemen and for many years, especially after World War II, it stood in neglect abandoned by a nation which is once again discovering its glory at all times of day.
Unlike other capital cities around the world, Valletta is a small peninsula with a population of just under 7,000 though more and more people are returning to live in what is considered as a World Heritage City.
While Valletta has always … [Read more...]

Rizzi as they are called in Maltese remind me of my lazy childhood summer days. Swimming on the beach at St Paul's Bay overlooking St Paul's Islands (see below), parents of young children would go snorkelling to pick up the sea urchins. Time flies and this must have been a good 30 or so years ago.
They would go snorkelling for an hour, fill up a plastic bag with sea urchins which were caught from the rocks or seabed and then come back to the beach were the mothers and fathers would get a knife, gently cut open the sea urchin in half and give it to the children with a spoon to scoop out or else serve on top of bread like a very rustic version of bruschetta. These memories still make my mouth water given the sea urchins would have an incredible but delicate taste of the sea.
It is said that the presence of sea urchins at sea reflects the cleanliness of the sea water. I am not sure whether this urban legend is to be believed or not but over the years this tradition has since been … [Read more...]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qvw_KkmVFWU#t=24
As the holiday season in Europe slowly starts to come to an end, one starts to think of the cooler months but also about what books to read to remind oneself of the summer.
Palmento, A Sicilian Wine Odyssey has been earmarked as one of my summer reads after I read Corkscrewed by Robert V. Camuto about wines in France (I will review the book later).
But I can imagine myself reading this book on a cold winter evening, with the rain knocking on the windows maybe with a glass of wine to accompany the reading. In fact, I am sure that this coming winter, I will come back to read this book given I have rarely read a book so beautifully written about the subject of wine, the region and its people.
Now, I may be biased because as you may have seen, my interest in wine more than 15 years ago came from the discovery of Sicilian wine and its many facets.
As the author itself wrote, Goethe wrote in the eighteenth century "To have seen … [Read more...]

The season for lampuki (a typical Mediterranean fish that is incredibly popular in Malta and one of the most traditional fish you can find at this time of year) has just started but the fish at the fishmongers were still small so I opted for tuna steaks.
The temperature is still extremely high in Malta making cooking anything elaborate a bit complicated. The fishmonger was making brisk business as queues lined up to get fresh fish for lunch or dinner.
To beat the heat in the kitchen, there is no better way then to get fresh tuna steaks that cook in minutes and prepare a very quick 'salsa' which needs no cooking and which is mouthwatering.
I therefore prepared the quick sauce to accompany the tuna steaks. I chopped one shallot and added sherry vinegar to the shallots to add some acidity. Then I seasoned with Maldon sea salt. I chopped some green olives in, added some pine nuts, a clove of garlic (finely chopped), some cherry tomatoes and chopped parsley. Once all the … [Read more...]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1UDS2kgqY8
A week without internet last week relaxing on the island of Gozo was an excellent way of winding down but meant that the 'What I enjoyed reading this week" series of articles got interrupted.
You can therefore find a few interesting finds from last week as well as some from this week here.
Michel Roux Jr is no longer the presenter for the next series of Masterchef on BBC. This is a pity because he was an integral part of the show. Nevertheless, renowned British chef Marcus Wareing, who has been featured many times during past Masterchef editions and who is known for seeking perfection takes over. Here he is interviewed by the Financial Times.
An interesting read about wine pairing rules which no longer seem to work and where therefore versatile wines are key.
Foodiva is the sister of a very good friend of ours with a great food blog on the Dubai scene. Being Cypriot, her culinary guide to Cyprus is not only mouthwatering but it … [Read more...]

Malta and Michelin stars do not go together. One of the major problems in my view is not the quality of the produce which one can find on the island or the creativity of chefs but rather the fact that the small island in the Mediterranean is still too small to have a critical mass that can sustain a fine dining experience.
Therefore there was a great sense of anticipation when I read that Eneko Atxa and a British entrepreneur were opening a 100 day pop-up restaurant Aziamendi which the Spanish Basque chef had opened in December 2013 at Iniala in Thailand.
The location that has been chosen for this pop-up restaurant is exceptional. Located in a beautiful palazzo in Archbishop Street in Valletta (the Civil Service Sports Club) it overlooks the Grandmaster's Palace and the beautiful St George's Square.
Given we were in Malta on holiday, I was anxious to try it out particularly since Eneko Atxa, born in 1977 is Spain's youngest ever 3 Michelin star chef in a restaurant scene which … [Read more...]

Malta, or should I say Gozo, has its first artisanal brewery with the opening in June of Lord Chambray at the Gozitana Agricultural Village in Xewkija.
While on a visit to Gozo, I went to meet Samuele d'Imperio, the managing director of Lord Chambray to discover why they set their eyes on making Malta's first craft beer.
He told me the family had been visiting Gozo every summer for the past 25 years and it was always their dream to eventually buy a property with a view on Malta's sister island. They finally bought a property in Fort Chambray around five years ago.
It has always been his parents' dream to retire on the island of Gozo. His father, an accountant, is around five years away from retirement.
Samuele, also an accountant, fell in love with craft beers during a year working with Deloitte in Sydney. "We love Gozo and we wanted to do something for Malta and Gozo. But this is both my family's and my first experience making beer."
They are however in good hands. … [Read more...]

Craft or artisanal beer has taken the beer scene by storm worldwide. Craft breweries are opening and beer lovers are slowly starting to move from the commercial beers to microbreweries.
Even in countries where beer does not have such a tradition, the rise of artisan beers has been astonishing. The concept of an artisanal beer is different and once you get accustomed to the taste it is not easy to return to a commercially brewed beer.
Living in Belgium means that I get to taste many great craft beers all with different flavours and styles. But it is also exciting to discover that this new trend has reached the country where I was born and lived for most of my life.
Malta is therefore following in this trend thanks to an Italian family, with a love for Gozo, who have invested money to launch the country's first artisanal beers.
When I read about Lord Chambray a few weeks ago I knew that this was a very important development for Malta and Gozo particularly since Malta already … [Read more...]

Visiting a fishing port has a certain allure to it. Gozo’s fishing port of Mgarr is a small but picturesque harbour which is busy particularly in the summer months with the constant shuttling of visitors from the island of Malta for the period in mid-August around the feast of Santa Maria.
Mgarr harbour with its small passenger terminal is no longer just a fisherman’s harbour particularly since tourism on the island is an essential part of the island’s economy.
Nevertheless over the past years, it has become the venue of a number of interesting restaurants and bars just alongside the fishing boats many of which were out at sea.
One of the best restaurants on the island can be found here. It-Tmun rose to popularity in Xlendi, a sea-side resort on the other side of the island before it moved to Mgarr a few years ago. Tmun in Mgarr has gone from strength to strength.
Now this is a family which is renowned in the Maltese restaurant schene. Leli, the owner of the restaurant has … [Read more...]